2014 ATOC Route

2014 Tour of California Cities Announced

Next year’s north-to-south route sees two mountaintop finishes for the oldest stage race in the US

Joe Lindsey

(Photo by Returning for 2014, the Diablo summit proved decisive for the 2013 race. (Wil Matthews))

It’s November, when, of course, minds turn to thoughts of stage racing in the United States. A day after its Colorado counterpart’s announcement, the Amgen Tour of California revealed its host cities and basic stage lineup for the 2014 edition.

The May 11 to 18 event will return to its north-to-south route after a year when it switched directions. The 2014 edition, the race’s ninth, features some familiar elements with a few new scenes in a course that’s balanced from front to back and includes two mountaintop finishes.

As with Colorado’s USA Pro Challenge, repeat cities are a theme. The TOC hasn’t specified whether it will use circuits like the Colorado race, but the first and eighth stages will start and end in the same cities, as will the Folsom TT.

The traditional TOC course starts in northern California. And for 2014, the event begins in Sacramento. Two crucial stages are an individual time trial in a new host town, Folsom, and a reprise of 2013’s queen stage from San Jose to the summit of Mount Diablo, where Leopold Koenig won the stage and Tejay van Garderen cemented his overall win.

But the southern part of the state gets plenty of action too. Santa Clarita will host not one, but two starts. The first day, Stage 6, ends in the race’s second mountaintop finish at Mountain High ski area in the San Gabriel Mountains. Stage 7 starts in Santa Clarita again and will spend part of the day in the San Gabriels before a big descent to Pasadena.

Folsom, a town just to the east of Sacramento, is an intriguing new destination. While it’s west of the Sierra Nevada, there are a number of hills to the north around Folsom Lake that could make for a challenging course.

The Mount Diablo finish, a long climb with steep stretches, is undoubtedly the pivotal point of the race. But the second summit finish, at Mountain High, could make for an interesting stage. The little ski area is located just west of the small town of Wrightwood. While not as steep as the climb to nearby Mount Baldy, a route up Big Pines Highway, one likely option, would gain much more than 2,000 feet, and is steepest near the top.

The other stages are comfortably familiar parts of the TOC. It’s hard to imagine the race without at least one beachside finish, and the 2014 route will have two, including the Santa Barbara sprint used last year and a day-long spin down the picturesque central coast from Monterey to Cambria.

And the Thousand Oaks finish may be a circuit like the 2010 edition, which used the 1,000-foot Rock Store climb in Westlake Hills. It’s a tricky, hilly circuit and one that could produce exciting racing.